Chapter 3 - The Girl in the Photograph
“Stay away from the windows.”
Luca said it so sharply I obeyed before I could ask why. He pulled the library curtains closed and called Gabriel. By the time I had counted ten heartbeats, two guards were outside the door and the whole mansion had gone into lockdown.
My hands were shaking. I hated that. I hated even more that I couldn't stop.
“Why would they want me?” I asked.
Luca studied the message. “I intend to find out.”
“I'm a housemaid.”
“Someone knows you have the key.”
“Then give it to them.”
He looked up. “And teach them that threatening you works?”
I didn't have an answer. In the kitchen I could face Vanessa with a ruined cake. Here, with a stranger watching through the window, courage felt harder to find.
Gabriel entered, phone in hand. “The outer cameras caught a vehicle beyond the east wall. Black SUV, no plates visible. It's gone.”
“Find it,” Luca said. “And move Mrs. Russo away from the windows.”
“Already done.” Gabriel hesitated. “There's something else. The construction permits on the cottage were filed under a Bellini-owned holding company. The authorization bears your electronic signature.”
“I never signed anything.”
“I know.”
Luca's eyes darkened. “Get the original records.”
When Gabriel left, I looked at the photograph again. Luca's father and Victor Bellini stood shoulder to shoulder. Behind them, half-hidden by a warehouse door, was a woman in a pale coat. Only part of her face showed.
Something about her bothered me.
“May I?” I asked.
Luca handed me the photograph. I brought it closer to the lamp. The woman had a narrow face, dark eyes, and a crescent-shaped birthmark beside her left ear.
My stomach turned.
“My mother has a birthmark like that.”
Luca frowned. “Your mother?”
“Her name is Anna Carter. She used to work in hospital administration. She's been sick for a long time.”
“Could it be someone else?”
“Maybe.” I wanted it to be. “But I have pictures of her when she was young. This looks exactly like her.”
Luca's gaze moved from the photograph to me. I could almost see him rebuilding everything he thought he knew about my arrival at the mansion.
“Did someone recommend you for this job?”
“Mrs. Russo interviewed me. I applied online.”
“Why here?”
I hesitated. “The pay was good. And the insurance helped cover my mother's care.”
“Nothing else?”
I could have lied. Instead I told him what I'd never told anyone in the house.
“Before she got sick, my mother kept saying I needed to find a place called Moretti House. She said someone there owed her the truth. I thought she was confused. Then I saw the job posting.”
Luca looked as if the floor had shifted beneath him.
“Emily, you should have told me.”
“You barely knew my name.”
He winced. “That's fair.”
It was the first honest thing anyone in that mansion had said to me all night.
He asked permission to call my mother. I dialed the nursing center myself, but the receptionist told me Anna had been transferred that afternoon to a private clinic. I hadn't authorized it. Neither had her doctor.
My mouth went dry. “Where did they take her?”
“The paperwork lists Bellini Family Medical Services,” the receptionist said.
I dropped the phone.
Luca caught it before it hit the floor. He spoke calmly to the receptionist, requested the transfer records, and ended the call. Then he crouched in front of me, his dark eyes level with mine.
“We're going to get her back.”
“You don't know where she is.”
“Not yet.”
“Your fiancée's family took my mother.”
“Yes.”
I expected him to defend Vanessa, or make excuses, or tell me I had misunderstood. He did none of those things.
“I should have seen what was happening in my own house,” he said. “I didn't. That's on me.”
A knock interrupted us. Margaret stood in the doorway wearing a soft cardigan Gabriel had found for her. She looked tired, but her eyes were clear.
“I heard about Anna,” she said.
I rushed to her. “You knew my mother?”
She took my hands. “Yes, sweetheart. That's why I hired you.”
The admission struck harder than Vanessa's slap.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because your mother asked me not to. She wanted you safe until she could explain.”
“Explain what?”
Margaret glanced at Luca. “Anna was an accountant for your father's shipping company. She discovered payments that didn't belong on any legitimate ledger. She tried to warn your mother.”
Luca went still. “My mother died in a car accident.”
“That's what everyone said.”
“Margaret.” His voice cracked. “Tell me what you know.”
She sat on the edge of the sofa. “Your mother was frightened the week before the crash. She argued with your father. She said the Bellinis were using the shipping business to move money and that innocent people would suffer if the records disappeared. Anna helped her copy the evidence.”
“Where are the copies?”
“In the cellar, I believe. But I never saw what was sealed there. Your father only told me that the truth would destroy people you loved.”
Luca stared at the photograph. “He knew she was in danger.”
Margaret wiped her eyes. “I think he knew too late.”
A memory surfaced from my childhood: my mother locking the front door twice, checking beneath our car before school, waking from nightmares and whispering a name I could never quite understand.
Bellini.
I had thought it was the name of a place.
Luca's phone rang. Victor Bellini's name lit the screen.
He answered on speaker.
“Luca,” Victor said pleasantly. “My daughter tells me you've had an emotional evening.”
“Where is Anna Carter?”
Silence.
Then Victor chuckled. “I see you've been talking to the help.”
“Answer me.”
“She's receiving excellent care. Her daughter can join her, if you send Emily to the front gate.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Luca's voice turned cold. “You don't get to bargain with a woman's life.”
“Everyone bargains, son. Your father understood that.”
“I'm not my father.”
“No,” Victor said. “He was smart enough to know when to surrender.”
The call ended.
For a moment nobody moved. Then Gabriel appeared with a laptop. “Boss, we recovered footage from the old security archive. It's from seventeen years ago. The night your father died.”
Luca stared at the screen as grainy images flickered to life. A man entered the service corridor carrying a metal case. Another followed him.
Victor Bellini.
Then a third figure appeared: a woman with long dark hair, walking quickly toward the cellar stairs.
I leaned forward. “That's my mother.”
The woman turned toward the camera, revealing the crescent birthmark beside her ear. She looked frightened. She held a little girl by the hand.
A little girl in a yellow raincoat.
I remembered that coat.
I remembered wearing it.
May you like
The recording showed the child turning toward the camera.
And the child was me.
